Rita Sanchez (born May 20, 1937) is an American academic in the field of Chicana/o studies, a pioneering educator, activist, and writer known for her contributions to Chicana empowerment and the establishment of Chicana studies curricula in higher education.
Early Life and Education
Rita Sanchez was born in San Bernardino, California, on May 20, 1937, the seventh of eleven children. Her family roots are in Bernalillo, New Mexico, where her ancestors were among the "first mestizos" due to intermarriage between Spanish and Indigenous peoples. Her grandfather took a second home in San Bernardino in 1910 due to his work with the Southern Pacific Railroad. She graduated from San Bernardino High School in 1956 and studied journalism at San Jose State University as one of the first Mexican-Americans to attend college, though she did not initially complete her degree.
She returned to college in the 1970s as a single mother of two daughters, earning a B.A. in English in 1972, a master's degree in education in 1973, and an M.A. in English in 1974, all from Stanford University. While at Stanford, she became the first woman to win the Stanford Chicano Fellowship and taught the first Chicana studies course at the university.
Academic Career
In 1974, Sanchez was hired as the first woman to hold a full-time tenured faculty position in the Mexican American Department at San Diego State University (SDSU), where she taught until 1984. During this period, she also pursued doctoral studies at the University of California, San Diego, on a Ford Foundation Fellowship. At SDSU, she pioneered the first Chicana journal, Visiones de la Mujer, and produced a Journal of Chicana Women's Writings.
In 1990, she returned to teaching at San Diego Mesa College, where she chaired the Chicano Studies department from 1996 to 1999. In 2006, she led the department to change its name to the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies. She is now Professor Emerita in English and Chicano Studies at Mesa College.
Other Work
Leaving academia temporarily in 1984, Sanchez founded the Acevedo Gallery in San Diego with her second husband, Mario Acevedo, and his father, artist Guillermo Acevedo. The gallery primarily showcased works by Chicano artists, as well as art from Latin America and Native American art from the southwestern United States.
Publications
Sanchez published her 1973 article "Chicana Writer: Breaking Out of Silence," which placed writing center stage as a means of challenging male-centered knowledge. She contributed the chapter "The Five Sanchez Brothers in World War II" to the book Mexican Americans & World War II (2005). In 2017, she co-edited Chicana Tributes with Sonia Lopez, which tells the stories of sixty-one San Diego County women who became leaders in government, education, the arts, and other fields.
Recognition
Sanchez was inducted into the San Diego County Women's Hall of Fame in 2011 for her dedicated activism. Her work has been recognized in Chicano Studies: The Genesis of a Discipline by Professor Michael Soldatenko, which acknowledges her as a predecessor to 1980s women's activism.
